Report: Calls to emergency services up at Rice University due to Four Loko

Seriously, it should not be a surprise that that too much of this will make you sick.

The Rice Thresher is reporting today that calls to Rice Emergency Medical Services has increased significantly. REMS Captain Hashim Zaidi tells the paper caffeinated alcoholic drinks such as Four Loko is one reason why.

From the story:

According to Zaidi, one of the most troubling characteristics of the increase in alcohol-related calls was the fact that students were often found alone and abandoned. He stated that this development appeared only recently and that, in previous years, a patient’s friends would always stay with him or her until REMS arrived. Zaidi said Rice’s administration and college presidents have given this issue much discussion and thought.

“The Dean’s Office is taking [this current trend] very seriously,” Zaidi said. “They want to make sure there’s what they call a culture of care at Rice University so that when people drink, it’s responsibly and the people that do drink look out for each other.”

I’m going to give my own opinion on the situation and acknowledge that it’s probably not going to be popular:

In my house I like to practice what I call natural consequences. When my kid is a brat she gets sent to her room, because I want her to understand that in the real world nobody wants to be around a jerk. And she can eat what she wants, but if she eats candy till she pukes, I’m not going to be there holding her hair back.

So the “kids” nowadays want to drink caffeinated malt liquor that tastes like raspberries? Fine. But they should know they’re going to get sick. (It’s caffeinated malt liquor that tastes like raspberries.) And no one wants to hang out with that annoyingly caffeinated drunk. Even the FDA warns against what they call a “state of wide-awake drunk.”

So you get too drunk, too obnoxious and left by your sick and lonesome? Sounds like natural consequences to me.

That said, as a parent I wouldn’t want the natural consequences killing my kid either. Party safer, smart college students.